Adda

The name "Adda" refers to an informal gathering not bound by any external pressure and therefore its aim is to facilitate casual exchange of dialogues.

Adda became a stage for both students and artists to share their practice and it's problematic. It engaged everyone in a critical discourse addressing the loopholes within the system. Starting from the very first urge to be an artist, it raised questions like, what it means to be an artist. Whether there is a need to be known as one? Whether there could be other ways of existing and working as an artist? In addition, to find other ways of disseminating one's practice. It looked at the idea of whether institutions were the only guardians of art and whether these power structures were responsible for making or breaking one's inner will to be an artist. Whether activism meant to only fight for others rights or to fight against other larger systems, which are as corrupted, as dictatorial and as capitalist as the very systems that one operates within.

Adda as an initiative enabled students to conduct Sunday sessions to fit in with the schedule of weekday classes in their respective schools. Other artists and practitioners were invited for Q & A sessions. It became a forum where discussions often happened outside the linguistic limitations that generally exist in the cultural domain. These discussions led to studio visits that further lead to other collaborated and curated projects in exhibition spaces in and outside of Mumbai.

Adda also performed the role of bringing together a sense of an artist's commune, a community that participated and continue to participate in CONA's successive events.